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Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Tar Heels Cement #1 Ranking; Ohio St. Saves Season

Florida St. 77 #1 North Carolina 90Just a day after regaining the #1 ranking in the nation, North Carolina showed why they deserved the top spot with a routine home win over Florida State.

North Carolina was ranked #1 from preseason through the January 14 poll, after which they suffered their first loss of the season, 82-80, to Maryland. Since then, Memphis and Tennessee had assumed the lead, but both lost key games and with only one other loss - to Duke - the Tar Heels were the obvious choice, especially since Ty Lawson is fully recovered from injury and playing again.

North Carolina will get their final test of the regular season and a chance to make amends at Duke on Saturday. The Blue Devils upended North Carolina a month ago, 89-78 at Chapel Hill. Lawson was inactive for that game, but he will be ready to put in his best effort in a game that will determine the ACC regular season champion, if Duke takes care of business Wednesday night at Virginia.

Lawson scored 10 points in 20 minutes against the Seminoles, and looks to be ready to play 30 or more minutes against Duke's guards, Greg Paulus and Jon Scheyer.

#15 Purdue 77 Ohio State 80 OTThe Buckeyes have been knocking on the Big Ten door the last few games and finally they just knocked it down with a big win that could pave the way for an Ohio State entry into the NCAA field.

The Buckeyes held Purdue to 41% shooting while hitting 48% themselves. Jamar Butler led all scorers with 25 points as Ohio State battled into overtime with one of the co-leaders of the conference.

The loss dropped the 14-3 Boilermakers a 1/2-game behind 14-2 Wisconsin and a 1/2-game ahead of 13-3 Indiana.

While the game certainly had implications to the tight Big Ten title race, it was the most important win of the season for the Buckeyes, who improved to 9-8 in conference play and 18-12 overall with a final regular season game and the Big Ten tourney ahead.

Ohio State had lost four straight and sorely needed a win to stay in consideration for post-season play.

Nebraska 66 #9 Texas 70A good showing by the Cornhuskers wasn't enough to keep them on the bubble for the big dance as they dropped to 6-9 in conference play. The Longhorns play their final game of the regular season at home Sunday against Oklahoma State.

Florida Gulf Coast 37 #21 Marquette 67This was like practice for Marquette, which is ranked, plays most of their games in the Big East and is looking ahead to the post season. The Golden Eagles starters only played 21-30 minutes, no player from Florida Gulf Coast scored more than six points as their record fell to 10-21. Not nice.